My Neighbor & her 98-Year Old Mother Read my Poem About Family Portraits

I’m so pleased that Queenie, my late 98-year old neighbor, offered to read my poem “Likenesses” with her daughter.

“Likenesses” is about family portraits hung in stairwells and hallways, and how the profiles of old silhouettes seem to stare at the back of each other’s heads. Daughters often become mothers, and new portraits appear in front of them on the picture walls.

This chronological view of mothers and daughters – the older ones just anonymous silhouettes – struck a chord with me.